Office Hours: Church Communication Salaries and Wasted Ad Money

Every week I hold online office hours and answer questions from folks like you. This week we look at how much church communication directors should get paid as well as how to ditch ineffective offline advertising! Take a look and be sure to join me every Wednesday from 2-4 p.m. CDT for online office hours!

I just found out that our church is paying $236/month for an ad in the local YellowPages for our preschool, elementary school and church. Yet we spend less than $10/month on our website. What would you do to advertise with that money?

My answer: With the $236? I’d start investing in Google AdWords and Facebook ads immediately. Split the balance down the middle, $118 going to Google and $118 going to FB.

After a month, see what does better in furthering your goals and adjust accordingly. There is no reason to be wasting money on YellowPage ads. Even if you live in the back country of Timbuktu, the majority of people are online. Overwhelmingly so.

Tell whoever is writing that check every month they’re wasting the church’s money. Then ask them to run an experiment for a month. Then show them the results at the end of the experiment and how they better serve the church.

Great question. Hope I wasn’t unclear. ;-)

What is a competitive salary for a church communications director and an assistant director? I’m graduating w/ a B.A. in April 2012 and want to know whether my expectations are too high or too low.

My answer: This largely depends on where you are in the country. That said, you’d be getting robbed if you settled for anything less than $40,000 as a church commucications director. Trust me, I’ve had experience in this area.

As for an assistant, $36,000. If you need to adjust these for your neck of the woods, go here and plug in the numbers accordingly:

Hope that helps! Don’t settle. There are good churches out there who will pay you what your worth. Keep a level head, remember that you’re going into ministry, but don’t work for peanuts. Speaking from experience, people will take advantage of that.

Thanks for the great questions everybody! Remember these are just one man’s opinions, but I have been around the block a few times! Hopefully this information will help you get from where you are to where you want to go. See you next time.

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Justin Wise

Justin Wise lives in West Des Moines, Iowa, with his wife and son. He likes coffee, reading, running and blogging.